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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24845749">Things never turn out right</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/rea40/pseuds/Raven-Star'>Raven-Star (rea40)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Tries [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Harry Potter was Raised by Other(s), Time Turner (Harry Potter), charaters other than Harry and Albus are brief</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 06:27:51</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,085</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24845749</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/rea40/pseuds/Raven-Star</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Albus Dumbledore tries, and he tries and he tries. Each attempt ends in failure and sadness and he falls, sometimes literally</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Tries [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2070996</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>26</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Things never turn out right</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Albus Dumbledore tries, and he tries and he tries. Each attempt ends in failure and sadness and he falls, sometimes literally. </p><p> </p><p>When Albus first meets the boy, when he’s an eleven year old looking awed at the wonder of Hogwarts, he is not quite what Albus expected. He is shy and quiet but he quickly overcomes that. He becomes loud and brash in the face of Gryffindor expectations. He is small and sometimes flinches too hard when an adult stands too close or when there's a loud noise.<br/>
But sometimes Albus will catch a glint in his eye, a smile that is not quite right and he fears for the boy, for the world. He has seen that glint, that smile before. That is when he first set this plan into motion. A ritual that is not quite light because it reverses death and takes more blood than the light should be so willing to shed. But it is for the greater good and he feels he made the right choice when he falls from the astronomy tower. When he wakes with the sound of Bellatrix Lestranges laughter in his ears, the sad and terrified grey eyes of Draco Malfoy haunting his sight and the guilt of forcing Severus Snape to land the killing blow in his heart he knows he made the right choice. He wouldn’t have woken up if it was not necessary.<br/>
He never does learn what went wrong in that first timeline to send him back.</p><p> </p><p>The first time he goes back he makes a simple change. Instead of leaving the little green eyed boy, who cries and cries and cries, on the doorstep of number 4 privet drive he hands him to his Deputy. Minerva looks shocked and tries to refuse but in the end she accepts as she always does. Albus always knows the buttons to press to make people do what he needs.<br/>
She looks at the little boy who has finally stopped crying and she smiles.<br/>
It changes nothing or maybe everything. Because even in his worst nightmares this is not the ending he expected.<br/>
Minerva is too strict and puts too many expectations on the boy. She looks at him and she sees James, she sees Lily, she sees the savior of their world. She forgets to see Harry. Harry who just wants to be loved. Harry grows and grows and his cheerful smiles turn into scowls and he rebels and he screams. He tells them through angry tears that they never saw him, they only saw his parents, they only saw him as a tool. And Albus has to admit that the boy is right.<br/>
The first time is a failure and when the school, his beloved Hogwarts falls around him, the last thing he sees is glowing green eyes full of anger and a matching spell.</p><p>    The second time he makes a slightly bigger change. He hands the child to a family, the Wesleys. They already have so many children that he doubts one more will make a difference. And he's certain that they will not force upon him the expectations that caused the first attempt to fail.<br/>
And he’s right. They do not demand he be Lily or James or anyone but Harry. They do not demand he save their world. Instead they forget that he is but a child while only treating him as one. They take advantage but never tell him anything of the future.<br/>
At first everything is fine. Harry is happy. He laughs and smiles and plays with the other boys. But when Harry comes to Hogwarts at eleven he looks withdrawn and uncertain. It takes another three years to see why when Molly comes to him and explains with tears in her eyes. Albus gave them money to care for Harry and when they needed more they simply took the key that Albus had given them for safekeeping and took some more. Harry has gone to Gringotts and been given bank statements. Harry was only eleven and he didn't understand why his family was taking his money. Didn't understand why his trust vault was almost empty.<br/>
Molly felt terrible, Arthur looked uncertain as they realized they had taken advantage of their youngest son. The sudden access to money had made them forget that they had never needed it before.<br/>
No amount of explaining did any help. Harry was angry, he was sad. He told them that if they had asked he would have given them everything he had. But instead they never told him and he had to find out from a piece of parchment from the goblins. He asked why they never told him that he was expected to fight, why he had to defend the whole Wizarding world from a powerful wizard when he was only a child. they only wanted to protect him Molly cried. But in every timeline if there was one thing Harry Potter hated it was being kept in the dark, of secrets and lies and people unwilling to tell him things that affected him.<br/>
Harry James Potter never finished his schooling at Hogwarts, he disappeared into the night after raging at the people who had raised him for their lies. He was never seen again and the Dark Lord Voldemort rose without trouble.<br/>
The second time is a failure in a different way.</p><p>The third time he thinks that perhaps he is not thinking big enough. So just before he breathes his last in the previous timeline he uses all his might to go farther back in time, past Harry Potter's birth, and to a little orphanage where a young boy learns that he really is special.<br/>
At first Albus thinks that he should just get rid of the boy. Wouldn't that simplify things. Rid the world of evil before it has a chance to breathe. But he looks at the boy and sighs. He can’t, he never could. Even though he knows what will happen this boy is still his student, an eleven year old just looking for his place in the world.<br/>
Instead he tries to ensure that the boy doesn't go down the wrong path. It makes things worse and Albus almost allows himself to cry, to sob at the unfairness of it all. He never goes that far back again.</p><p>    The fourth time he goes back just far enough to save Lily and James Potter. He ensures they do not die by the hand of Voldemort. Instead they die in a freak accident in diagon alley and little two year old Harry Potter goes with them. It is the first time that he wonders if this whole thing is futile.</p><p>    The fifth time he stops Sirius Black from going after Peter Pettigrew. He hands the babe to Sirius and it forces him to stop and calm him down. Sirius takes Harry Potter home and raises him as his own. At first Albus fears the same thing that happened with Minerva will happen again. But it doesn't. Sirius looks at Harry and he sees Harry. He sees his best friends too but not in the demanding way that Minerva had. Instead he shares stories and tells Harry that his parents loved him, and would be proud of him. At Harry's fifth birthday Albus thinks he has done it. And when the boy joins Hogwarts Albus is nearly certain. Because he smiles and is happy and kind and there is never that terrifying glint or dark smile. But then Sirius, who had never left the Aurors, is shot down by a dark wizard. Harry is only thirteen and the death devastates him. He has now lost three parents and when people offer fake sympathies in an attempt to get closer to the Boy-who-lived it causes him to explode a classroom. Albus remembers the first time Harry lost Sirius. He thinks of Crucio that he had attempted to cast on Bellatrix Lestrange and the successful one cast on Amycus Carrow. Glowing green eyes full of anger do not chase him into the darkness this time. Instead they are sad and resigned and devastating in their sorrow.</p><p>    When he awakes again thanks to the emergency reset on the time turner he is tempted to give up. He has gone back in time five times now and nothing is working. But then he sees Severus Snape hugging the fallen body of Lily Potter and he has an idea.<br/>
It was a bad idea. Severus Snape is too rough with the boy. Not able to get over his grudge even when the boy is little more than a baby. Albus had thought love of Lily would lead to love of Harry. It does not. Severus is too angry, too full of hate and too empty of kindness and patience. He keeps the boy alive, but he does not give warmth, not even an inkling of love, only long suffering sighs and demands for “quiet, Potter '' when the boy cries. Harry grows up wary and nervous and scared. Mental abuse can be worse than physical and Harry's mind is more scarred than his body ever was, in any of the previous timelines. The darkness fills him and he makes similar choices to those that his foster father had. He turns to a powerful man out of fear, out of desire to escape the man who raised him.<br/>
Albus Dumbledore is oh, so tired.</p><p>    This time he tries himself. He takes the boy in and he tries to learn from the past. He does not let the memories of Lily and James color his view of Harry. He tries his best not to use the boy. And it seems to work. His boy is bright and happy and kind.<br/>
This time Albus is not sure where he went wrong. It seemed like he just woke up one morning to find that Harry was pointing his wand at him. But the boy was also crying so perhaps not all had gone bad. And just before things end he sees the glassy look in those green eyes and the way his wand hand shakes and the other clenches. Oh, his poor, poor boy. What will it do to him to be trapped in his own head and forced to kill the man that raised him, that tended to his tears and read him bedtime stories. But soon that doesn't matter because once again green light fills his vision and he is falling, falling into another chance.</p><p>    He has lost count of how many times he has gone back. Nothing seems to work. Everything ends in reds and greens as the two most powerful wizards (Albus must admit that he is no longer in that class. Lord Voldemort was a powerful child and despite a fractured, broken, devastated soul, he is a powerful wizard. And Harry, poor sweet Harry, his magic is like Hogwarts, strong and vast and ever growing, old and new all at once. He can, and will, and has surpassed them both.) clash and come together. Sometimes The Dark Lord and the Boy-who-lived work together. Harry’s eyes grow sharp and dark and glitter with hatred or a terrifying glee that reminds him of Bellatrix Lester. Sometimes Harry simply disappears, lost too soon or escaping those who fail him (everyone fails him, Albus worst of all) and the world falls. Green eyes, Lily’s and Harry’s both haunt his dreams, reminds him that he is failing, that all he does is fail. When Arianas sad, quiet eyes join them he wants to weep. And sometimes Harry becomes his own entity. Those are the worst times, the times when Albus does weep, when he wants to give up, to allow the world to fall around him. </p><p>    Albus wants to stop. He wants to give up and pick a timeline with the least terrible path (which one is that, is it the first one where he fell to his death because of a deal he made or the one where Harry simply walked into the Forbidden Forest and never returned. Sometimes he wants to try raising him again but he doesn’t think he can stand seeing the despair in those green eyes as he is forced to raise his wand, not again) but he can't. The spell he had cast on the time turner will simply send him back in time to the moment James and Lily Potter died until things turn out right.</p><p>    Things never turn out right.</p>
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